That First Christmas
by littlee0618
Summary: Rachel goes home for the first Christmas since Finn passed.


A/N: So, my apologies for how crappy this is. It was just something I had to get out. Hope you enjoy! Leave me reviews, they're the best Christmas present ever.

I don't own Finn, Rachel or anyone associated with Glee. Only Ryan Murphy and Co do. 

**That First Christmas**

She wasn't going to go home for the holidays this year. She just didn't want to. She just didn't want to have anything to do with them. She'd missed Hanukkah first and foremost, as it had been at the beginning of the month and with school she really just couldn't get away. She wasn't feeling very much into them this year, she didn't feel like celebrating much.  
Christmas had been _his_ holiday and _he _was gone. There was nothing that made her heart burn more than that thought alone.  
He was gone. And he had been gone. It'd been a few months but that still didn't mean it hurt any less. He had been her person, for God's sake and he was just...gone.  
So in protest to the fact that the love of her life was gone, she just wasn't going to do Christmas this year. She was going to curl up in a ball on the couch, watch some sappy old movies and not feel anything for a few days. Kurt and Santana were going back to Lima for the holidays, so she would be alone. And alone is what she needed right now. She needed to just deal with how she was feeling.

She missed him. She missed him with every fibre of her being. Sure, she had tried to throw herself into her work and the diner and the preparations for her big starring role in Funny Girl but none of it mattered. None of it matter because he was gone. He was supposed to be here, cheering her on and helping her learn her lines (well, perfect her lines - she already knew the show backwards, forwards and up and down). But instead he was gone and she was alone.

They had just decided to give it the old college try. Ever since Mr. Shue's Valentine's Day wedding mishap they had decided that life was too short and too uncertain and they should just go for it. Not wait for whenever fate was going to throw them back together. So they had. He'd been up to see her a few times, she had gone back to Ohio to see him twice at his dorm at OSU.

And then he was gone.

She remembered the call like it was yesterday. It had been early in the morning, 3:03am to be exact when her phone blared on the night stand beside her. She blindly reached for, the name on the display not registering in her brain when she clicked 'answer'.  
It was Burt Hummel on the phone. His voice barely registered with her, when she looked up to see her bedroom door open and Kurt stand there, his own cell phone clutched in his hand and tears running down his cheeks.

She barely remembered what Burt had said to her. Key words like _accident, life support, blood _and _plane tickets_ registered in her mind before she hung up. She dropped her phone on the bed, hunched over and let out a gut wrenching sob. Santana had come stumbling into the bedroom and the three of them had cried.

They had gotten back to Ohio somehow, her dads collecting the two of them from the airport and driving them at Rachel's insistence to Cincinnati General Hospital where Finn had been airlifted. She just ran from the moment they got into the hospital, only stopping to ask about him at the front desk, arguing that she **was** in fact family, telling the bitchy nurse that she was his fiancée.  
She'd found the room, found Burt outside in the waiting area of the ICU. She'd collapsed against him, falling into his chest and letting out heart wrenching sobs when he closed his strong arms around her.

It had been a three car accident. It had been raining that night in Cincinnati, Finn had been on his way home for the weekend since he hadn't been home in awhile, when the car in front of him slammed on his brakes at the last minute. The police officer had said it was obvious Finn had tried to stop in time, but ended up slamming into the car in front of him while the car behind him had been following to closely and had slammed into the back of Finn's truck at an alarming speed. Finn's truck had been crushed in between the two cars, his head slammed against the car door and his long right leg shattered in three places.

They would later determine, when the doctor came to talk to them, that he was in a coma; the head trauma too much for his brain and it started swelling. He'd been rushed into emergency surgery to try and relieve the pressure but it hadn't been enough.

Finn had died 18 hours later when the injuries became too much and his brain and organs had shut down on him.

And he had taken Rachel's heart and life with him.

So when Carol had called her to wish her a Happy Birthday on December 18th, she'd also been calling to beg her to come home for Christmas. At first she had tried to give every excuse in the book, school, Funny Girl, work but Kurt was already home for the holidays and had quite obviously given his mother all of ammunition she would need to get Rachel to come home. Including offering to pay for her ticket. So Rachel had relented. And packed her bags, and caught a flight that night out of JFK to go home for Christmas.

It had been Burt and Kurt who had picked her up from the airport this time. Both of them enveloped her in a hug, and had taken her out to the car and to their house. Her father's were on their usual Christmas vacation and weren't going to be home until the new year. That had been another bullet Carol had used. She could stay with them at their house.

It had been a quiet drive back to Lima and Rachel had tried hard not to go back to when she was last home. Her last memory had been Finn's funeral and she really didn't want to go back there. She was already so sad. But she had to admit, it was kind of nice to be back. The air and area around her was familiar, and maybe at this time of year this is what she needed.

All resolve she had had from her flight and the drive to the Hudmel house was gone the moment she saw Carol. She hadn't seen her since the funeral but had regular conversations with her virtually on a weekly basis. But the woman just looked broken. She was sure Carol knew as much, if not more then she did about how much Finn had loved Christmas. It had been his favourite holiday, had she mentioned that? When she'd seen her, she fell into her arms and just gave her a big hug. Sometimes, you just needed to be with family.

But it was when she entered the house, memories immediately attacked her. She felt all breath leave her body as she stood in the foyer, many memories of being here with Finn, with and without the rest of his family during their high school years began to flood through her mind. She saw him standing against the railing of the stairs grinning at her with his crooked smile, she also saw him going UP the stairs, his handsome ass coming to her mind. Her mind screamed at her to move more into the house as Kurt and Burt came in behind her. Carol had just been standing, looking at Rachel and watching her, almost waiting for her to do something.  
"I'll take your bag upstairs." Burt had said, breaking the moment. Rachel had just nodded when Carol wrapped her arms around her again.  
"It's okay" She whispered, hugging the young woman.  
"Does it get easier?" She slipped out, her voice thick with tears. Carol looked down at her and shook her head.

The memories got worse when she went up the stairs. How many times had she walked this hallway? Run this hallway? She'd even made love to Finn against the wall right outside his bedroom on a weekend they'd had the house to themselves. But her feet felt heavy now as she walked through the upstairs of the modest house. Burt had said she was in the guest room at the end of the hall but that didn't stop her from running her hand over the handle to a bedroom she knew all too well. Or she used to know at least. She knew she would both regret and not regret it, but she opened the door and every feeling she had had since she entered the house had been magnified 1000%. It was exactly as she remembered it, the blue colour of the walls, the bed nicely made (that was the only thing that was different, Finn never made his bed...like ever). His bulletin board above his desk littered with pictures that spanned their entire high school career with candid pictures from glee club, to performances and outings and holidays. The room hadn't changed. It was everything else that had changed and that thought made her sick to her stomach. She moved over to the bed and sat down before leaning her head into her arms and letting herself fall apart. Her sobs racked her body and she eventually came to lay down on his bed, resting her head on the pillow where he used to sleep, her body stretching to fill the side of the bed that had been 'his' when they shared it and she allowed herself to just let go.

This wasn't the way it was supposed to be. She wasn't supposed to be here, not like this, not without him. He should have been here. She needed him to be here.

She wondered if they had figured out where she was. She didn't care. If they found her in here, oh well. She didn't have anything to hide. Grief had done a funny thing to her, she really had no shame now. Not when it came to her emotions, and not when it came to the memory of her Finn.

They left her alone for the most part that day, calling her down for dinner and not pressuring her when she declined. She just stayed in his room, laid on his bed and tried to conjure every single memory she had of him from the 4 years she had known him.

It was later, after dinner and it was beginning to get dark when she approached Burt and asked him to borrow a car. He'd looked at her hesitantly but had handed over the keys to Carol's Ford Focus when he saw the look in her eyes. She promised she'd take good care and would be back soon. But she wouldn't tell them where she was going. She needed to go alone. So she'd gotten in the car and driven to the only all night grocery store and had purchased a bouquet of flowers and drove on to her destination. The cemetery.

She found his resting place and just stared at the headstone for a minute, her foot digging into the small amount of snow there.  
**Finn Hudson  
1994-2013  
Loving Son, Brother, Friend**  
This shouldn't be real, there was no way this was right. She filled the one empty vase in front of his headstone with the flowers she brought and crouched down, touching the engravings on the headstone.  
"Oh Finn" Her lip trembled as she crouched there. "Why'd you have to go, huh? I miss you so much. I was going to pass on Christmas this year but your mother has kind of made it impossible. She practically begged me to come in. And I really can't say no to your mom. Just like I couldn't say no to you. I just...I miss you so much" Tears immediately came to her eyes, just staring at the headstone. He shouldn't have a headstone. He should be with her, celebrating the best time of year. "I'm sorry I haven't come to visit since you were moved here." She started. "I just...I guess you've seen how busy I've been. I got Funny Girl, the part of Fanny. But I think I told you that when I talked to you last..." She chuckled a little bit. "But God, life just isn't the same. It's so hard to breathe without you Finn. I..I went into your room at home, and I just...everything, every memory we ever made just flooded my mind. God, I miss you." She cried a little more in her hands, wiping her tears with her fingers. "I miss you so much. And honestly, I don't know how to go on without you. You said you'd always be here for me, and you're not. I know you didn't choose to go, but it still hurts. And being here, at home, in your house no less without you at your favourite time of year is the worst in the world. It just hurts. I know I don't need to say this, but I need you to just help me okay? Help me get through this, get through life just...help me. Because I honestly don't know what I'm going to do without you in my life" She cried for a few minutes as it began to snow again. She stood up after what seemed like hours and just stood there, with her arms wrapped around her and her face to the sky. When she caught sight of the star he had bought her Christmas' ago. And it seemed to be shining brightly above her and almost seemed like it, winked at her. A gentle wind blew as she was staring up at it, and she felt a warmth envelope and surround her. He was watching. He was always watching.

She drove home that night, returned the keys to Carol and Burt and wordlessly wrapped her arms around both of them before going up to the guest room, grabbing the comforter off that bed and going into Finn's room. She lay on his bed, trying not to disrupt the covers on the bed and wrapped herself in the one from the guest room. She needed to feel Finn around her and this was the best way. Now she was kind of glad she had come home for Christmas.

-The End-

A/N2: So how was that? Great? Terrible? Let me know! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!  
We miss you Cory :(


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